My stay in Kathmandu for Visa 25.12.06 - 3.12.06

Haylo

You get up to 72 hours on a transit visa, you'd better check the flight times.

The visa forum has a great thread on getting Indian visas in Kathmandu, there is no reason to suppose that transit visas are any quicker or slower to process, though they may be less expensive; in the UK at least the basic fee is £15 for transit instead of £30 for a tourist visa.

As this is primarily an Indian travel site, we don't have many members applying for transit visas, though the question does come up from time to time. It would be very helpful if you could report back with information about processing time etc.

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indiapanda

Just a note of caution to anyone obtaining an Indian visa in Kathmandu:

DON'T FORGET TO GET AND KEEP YOUR RECEIPT!

A normal tourist visa obtained in person at KTM in '07 turned out to be a forgery; because I had not kept the receipt, which would have exonerated me!, it has caused no end of trouble.

I strongly advise you all to get your receipt and keep it safe!

Haylo

It is incredible to hear that a visa officer at the Indian Embassy would give you a forged visa; I'd have thought that a half decent forgery would have cost far more than an official one!

machadinha

Reports on doing it in Sri Lanka have been just as iffy. In SL itself people then report differently, and seemingly just as inconsistently, on Colombo and whatever other city to do it in. Thailand I've heard no confirmed reports on, only rumors and hearsay. Davyd, can you say for a fact that it would be no problem there?

My impression is many long-term travelers are currently involved in a lot of wishful thinking about destinations where it could still be done effortlessly, then taking anyone's word that it happened to work for them as some form of guarantee. Fact is that my Dutch visa services have informed me those (relatively) new and more stringent rules (or shall we indeed say the more stringent application of existing rules) have, of course, been issued by the Indian government to Indian embassies and visa services worldwide.

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stevebenaulim

If anyone has any confirmed info on back to back visas in Colombo, Kandy, Thailand, Malaysia etc, please pass it on, but not hear say, im confused.
Yes ive known friends who have got 6 month visa in Bangkok, but they had been out of India for 5 months, so this is not a back to back???.

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palerider

Yes, it's very confusing.
What a few Australians are doing now is going to laos or Cambodia in between visits to India. If you stay a month in Laos, it's easy to get another visa, coz they're not Back to back.
Worth a look. Laos and Cambodia are really pleasant, and very non-touristy.
Beat the rush I reckon. There's already reports of tourist hotels etc, being built, so now's the time to go.

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Cheap 'n' Best

I having been doing back to back visas Indian visas for the last six years. I am currently on visa number thirteen. This is my understanding of the visa situation. You can first get a six month tourist visa from your own country, then when you leave India to either Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand or wherever you should easily be able to get another six month tourist visa. For this visa you do not need to be out of India for a certain length of time. When your want to apply for your third visa the only way to get another six monther is to either go back to your home country and apply from there or go to another country and remain out of India for at least two months before and then apply.

This is just my basic understanding of the situation and I feel this information can vary from country to country and person to person.

Good luck with your next visa......

Haylo

It's good to know that you have managed to get so many visas without having to go home for every one of them. Presumably you're not from the UK, where they are starting to refuse visas on the grounds of "Frequent Travel"!

It sounds as if living in a neigbouring country for two months before applying for another Indian tourist visa does the trick. However, I get the impression that a lot of people don't want to do that, they want to stay in India on truly back to back visas, and just do "visa runs" to nearby countries; that seems increasingly unlikely to be a realistic expectation.

Nick-H

Yep, Cheap 'n' Best is from the UK.

Thing is, it is only in the very recent past that India has turned a hair at back-to-back visas

Haylo

Oops, sorry Cheap 'n' Best.

Yes, I think that in the next few months we'll get a clearer picture of people's experiences in various countries.

From the recent posts on here, it seems that right now visitors to Kathmandu are most likely to get a three months single entry visa.

machadinha

It's not so new though, this has been going on for some years now (I'm quite sure it's been an issue ever since I signed on here, so in early 2005, and probably before that). My Dutch visa services told me those latest stipulations were passed out internationally just last summer or so though. (One needs to remember perhaps those services themselves were created not so long before that. In other words, they wouldn't have been around to know about it before.)

I think we've not been hearing anything much by way of clear reports on it because we're talking about a very disparate group, and then they'd need to find their way here, and such. I mean much as fabled "travelers" (cough) would sometimes like to think they represent some sort of "movement," of course they don't, with nothing to bind them except that, well, they like to travel around in one way or another.* Some of the above should serve as a good reminder again that if someone assures you "they've done it," that doesn't tell you any relevant details they may forget to add, such as that in fact they had a spell of traveling around SE Asia in the meantime, or whatever (they happen to be American and are thus eligible for an extended visa, or they have an Indian grandmother, etc.)

(Yes, I do hate that "traveler's" grapevine, or at least take it with a pitcher or two of salt, if you hadn't noticed yet.)

So anyway I'm not so sure if one can expect to get any clear view on it for some time to come, at least not from some individual tourist's point of view. The issue meanwhile seems to be very simple from an official point of view: Indian tourist visas were not intended to extend your stay beyond their stated period of stay. And it is illegal to use them for that purpose. The fact that people got away with it in the past gives you not an inch of ground to stand on regarding your present situation, and so there's no point in complaining about it on those grounds.

(I'd really love to hear some of my countrymen's takes on illegal aliens hopping in and out of here at will simply by applying for a new tourist visa all the time btw, let alone pursuing work no matter how altruistic or studies no matter how esoteric, of course. [Reason of stay: Well I have some vague sentimental if otherwise unfounded leanings towards the Cathars, and I thought I might give some sitar lessons while I'm at it, and besides I do a mean dhal tarka if I have to. Right.] Or claiming that hey, it worked in the past, why not now. Hell, from what I hear many of us don't even want the ones legally staying here to be around!)

* For those with overblown fantasies of what IndiaMike represents btw, it's enlightening to learn on the ground how few of your fellow travelers will be acquainted with it. Yes, some (indeed few) of them will have heard of it or noticed it in their web searching; and no few of those will have browsed on thinking the sheer mass of content was a little daunting, LOL.

machadinha

Recent and if at all necessary confirmation that all may not be so well btw: Torn: Sri Lanka or Bangkok .

Charles07

Hi there,

New member and all, but I have a question about the likelihood of getting the 6 month visa for India in Nepal. My visa expired yesterday June 7th and I have only been out of India since the 6th. I went through step one today and was warned by the fellow behind the desk that it was likely that it was likely I was to be rejected. This would be most unfortunate for personal reasons but if so, what is the best course of action? Flying to Thailand? I mean there really is no rush to get back to India apart from a friend I was to be meeting there in mid June but is there more likelihood of a 6 month visa in Bangkok? Does anyone have a first hand experience of getting their 6 month back to back visa rejected? If so, will they offer me one of lesser length or will I have to restart the process at an other embassy entirely?
I apologize for the length post.

Haylo

How much of your last visa was spent in India? If you were only there for a couple of weeks long holiday, they might well give you a back to back visa, as the the whole purpose is to stop people living in India on tourist visas, not to discourage genuine tourists.

However, they rarely issue six month back to back visas for people who have been spending a lot of time in Inda; if your application for six months is rejected, they may issue you a three month visa.

If they refuse entirely, they are likely to put a VAF stamp in your passport to show that you have applied for an Indian visa and been refused. That would make it difficult for you to get one at a different embassy in the near future. Sometimes when they stamp VAF in a passport, they'll include a note to suggest when you can reapply, otherwise according to an insider in the UK, it is best to leave it for six months before applying again.

In that case, it would have been better to wait for a couple of months before reapplying, according to previous advice on this thread, doing so would have greatly increased your chances. Not much help to you at this stage obviously, but it might help others reading this.

Shivani Skydancer

My friend Chris from the Uk just got his second Indian 6 month visa, back to back, from Kathmandu today. When he came to collect it today, they at first didn't want to give him more than 3 months but with a little bit of insistence they agreed to change it to 6 months. So, it is still possible these days. Just stay friendly but persuasive... good luck!